The Beginning This is the first short video undertaken between a group of friends, it started with a newspaper report back in 1993. We were a group of people that has our root from a local talent agency that supplies extras to then Singapore Broadcasting Corporation. The newspaper article on the 1993 Singapore Short Film Award really motivate us to make short video despite the fact that we face many problems.

I decided to borrow some money from a friend and brought a Hi8 video camera for $3400.00. I was serving in the army then and that left my bank account to zero sum. I was full of passion and to me, money has to be spent. It was ironic because of about 10 person, only two was in the army and the rest is working people. Several years later, the unwillingness to commit money by the members means that we could not proceed anymore.

My days in the army is ending soon, but we have to shoot before that could happen. Firstly, the deadline for entry is 15 January 1993. Second, I was going to a overseas training. So I took ROD leave and we started shooting.

Production Process Damon developed the script for a story he purposed. The story is about a man who dresses in drag to prostitute himself so that he can have the money to buy drugs. It was only after his sister's death that he turn over a new leaf and hence, a new life. It is in mandarin and we were rated Restricted(A) probably because of the theme.

The shooting lasted ten days, mostly because we do not have enough camera batteries. To add more agony, the light we use were 10 watts light that uses the same camera battery. We were charging batteries most of the time. Subsequently after the project, we brought more batteries.

Editing was not really editing but more like assembly work. It took me two days at a shop that rents out supposedingly professional editing equipments for $16 an hour. What I was doing was trying to sync two Hi8 VCR with my fingers on the release-pause-record and play button. Not very easy task. For those interested, the shop is a SONY Center located at Marina Square, Singapore. I never return there after that.

Audio editing was just as tedious. A few of us gather at Damon's place in the early hour of the night, close all windows and pull the curtains. Then putting the edited master into my camera, we attempt to dub soundtracks onto the PCM tracks. Fading sound was simply turning the volume knob to zero. The original sound is preserved on the AFM tracks.

What we learn I think for those venturing into independent videomaking, they should have done certain things before production even starts. What we did was to take all the casts and crews timing availability and work out a schedule, breaking the script into different sections to optimize shooting days.

Schedule should take into account travelling time, makeup, and equipment preparations. Location recce should have been done long before the production starts. We did not do this and valuable time was wasted.

We also did not audition the casts and subsequently, one of them got camera fright and we took some 29 takes for a simple scene! Remember to audition the cast! Rehearsal of scripts gave us a wrong sense of security then and we thought once the camera starts rolling, everything would be as planned. How wrong we were!

Continuity is just as important, have someone permanently do the job. Making sure that consistency of scene is maintained.

More advice can be found as you explore Video Bibliography.